Are people capable of change? And if so, is that such a bad thing?
Though it didn’t provide any concrete answers to such a broad, nuanced type of question, Parenthood‘s return from hiatus took on the issue of change through the eyes of several main characters. It’s a weird time for the Braverman family, with new lifeforms and old regrets coming into the world at the same time, and it seems as good a place in the series as ever to delve into the issues of stability and whether relationships that transform lose any of their meaning.
The title of the episode comes from Kristina’s idea to take gather her increasingly distant family together for a serious round of Team Braverman goodness, but if you think “Forced Family Fun” ends in a heartwarming game of mini golf and solidified bonds between Adam, Kristina, Max, and Haddie, you would be mistaken. Of course, this is Parenthood and everyone says their apologies (in their own way) by the end of the episode, but that’s not before Kristina leaves her family by the side of the road for a round of putt-putt with baby Nora. While watching Kristina’s anger finally boil over a little bit during the car ride to the course was quite funny, considering her usual demeanor, one could argue that this was the first crack in the mom of three’s armor and that she won’t be so easy to placate in the near future. Consider that Haddie will be off to college in a year (likely around this time in the show’s hypothetical fourth season), Max is growing more independent by the day, and Adam has a career that he loves and is good at; the distance that Kristina feels between herself and the other three members of her family will continue to grow and I could see her becoming a little more lonely later on in the season, since the structure of her family is changing whether she likes it or not.
I think one of the reasons that I enjoyed “Forced Family Fun” as much as I did was because of how appropriate it felt given its placement within the season. We’re approaching the halfway mark in the show’s 18 episode third season and two of the shows complicated pairings of exes are in limbo in terms of where they’re going next. Both Crosby & Jasmine and Seth & Sarah are at the point where they won’t be getting back together and they’re still trying to figure out how to fit the other into their lives, whether it be moving on to other people (Jasmine and Dr. Joe’s tryst has gotten under Crosby’s skin) or figuring out when and how to let go (Sarah’s uncertainty about Seth’s sobriety chances). While the former was yet another instance of Jasmine being a hypocrite, the latter was an interesting turn of events, as you could never really tell what Sarah wanted. We know she loves Seth as the father of her children and she loves this image of him in his sober days, but she’s getting drubbed with messages of “what are you doing, girl?”, her new boyfriend is uncomfortable with all the time she’s spending with her ex, and she seemed to have let him go with a final hug and a meaningful gift. However, the haunting final image, of the two watching “their movie” in different places at the same time, shows that maybe Sarah hasn’t fully dropped the idea of Seth coming out a new man.
I know he said something about how he wished he would have listened to her in the first place about rehab and that they would likely still be together had he went, but I don’t know if Sarah’s impressionable enough to be entranced by talk like that. Here she is, super ambitious Sarah Braverman, fully determined to make something of her life and thus far, she seems to be on her way; both of her kids are doing well, her boyfriend is amazing, and her career is thriving, so would she consider ditching at least two of those elements in favor of a question mark?
As much as I want Seth to heal himself, one and for all, I hope that Sarah just remains a confidante and nothing more, if only to keep her sanity and to show that as much as we may try to change, nothing is ever like it once was once the present passes.
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I disagree 100% with what you stated about Julia. She needed to tell Zoe what can and cannot be eaten when you are preagnant. Zoe does not have anybody in her life to tell her these things. What Julia messed up on was the way she said and how it came out, not the fact that she told her. As Joel said, Zoe needed to hear it. It should have come out more of a suggestion and less of a lecture, or as a friend giving advice to another. I believe that she would have said something whether or not the baby was going to be hers, because she has been through it before. She just needed to approach it better, which she did the second time around